Close Reading

Blythe, Hal and Charlie Sweet. "Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.'"Explicator 62.2 (2004) 108-110. (The full text of this article is available through the SHU library website. Last time I gave you a link to the exact page, but this time I'm asking you to demonstrate you can find the article on your own. You can start by going to the Reeves Library Home Page and clicking the "Find Articles" button.)

Note how the close reading written by Blythe and Sweet does not re-tell the main idea of the poem, or offer anecdotes about what the poem means to them personally, or offer a list of what the poem "could" mean.

Blythe and Sweet make a specific argument -- an non-obvious claim about Eliot's poem (and they bring in Donne's work for comparison).

In English, we defend our claims by quoting evidence (usually from the literary work we are studying) in order to SHOW the point we want to make.

But some observations don't count as non-obvious claims. Let's imagine a story about a protagonist who uses ice cream flavors to sort out all her relationships.

Ice cream is mentioned a lot in this story.

There is foreshadowing in this story.

None of the above statements would qualify as a non-obvious claim that needs to be defended.

Lucinda's mild surprise at learning that her aunt ("the craziest, freeest woman" in Lucinda's life) eats only vanilla ice cream prepares the reader to understand Lucinda's total shock at learning "Aunt Vivian punched a time clock and paid her bills" just like all the other unimaginative and barely distinguishable members of her family.

Note that in the above sentence, I did not first spend a whole sentence setting up the idea I want to talk about, then quote a long passage from the work, and then spend a whole sentence explaining the quote. Instead, I did all three tasks in a single sentence.

Your agenda item can be any passage from Blythe and Sweet's article, but your reflection paper should:

Quote the main claim or argument (the thesis) that Blythe and Sweet set out to prove.

Quote at least one important piece of evidence the authors use to support their claim.

Find an important
paragraph in Blythe and Sweet's article, and analyze it. Note that Blythe and Sweet don't summarize the works they discuss, or discuss whether they agree with the opinions presented in the poems.

What do
Blythe and Sweet spend their time talking about?

How do they work
their own opinions into their article?

How do they communicate the
idea that their claim is worth arguing -- that it's not so obvious that
everyone would automatically see it their way?

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20 Comments

Angela Palumbo said:

"The parallel between the two poems, then, seems so close that, rather than simply an allusion used for contrast, Donne's seventeenth-century "Song" may be a source of Eliot's twentieth-century "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (Blythe and Sweet).

“Donne’s use of the mermaid image to suggest the danger women pose to men most probably alludes to The Odyssey, in which only the wily Odysseus survived hearing the siren’s song. The persona’s placing of the possibility of hearing these femme fatales sing among the impossible tasks enumerated in stanza one of ‘Song’ sets the mood for the entire poem” (Blythe and Sweet). http://blogs.setonhill.edu/GretaCarroll/2008/02/mermaids_do_not_equal_unfaithf.html

“ His internal monologue begins with the ‘you’ and ‘I’ the two sides of Prufrock’s personality, debating whether or not to confront a female…. One side wants to believe in the possibility of a relationship with a woman; the other, doubts the possibility.”

"Both poems are 'love songs' (obviously both Donne and Eliot use song in their titles) uttered in the courtly love tradition by personas who view male-female relationships warily"

The key word within this passage is "warily." The writers are not viewing love as safe and something completely positive; they know that they need to watch themselves from fear of being hurt or rejected. Maybe they are love songs, maybe they're not. I don't think that we should just assume they are because the word song is in the titles. Let's say that they are love songs. A love song doesn't always have to be happy. A love song can involve a heartbreak, confusion, or conflicts. I'm not sure that I agree with the fact that they are for sure love songs, but I do agree that both writers are looking at love defensively.

"Donne's persona pictures women as adversaries to be treated with caution. Donne's use of the mermaid image to suggest the danger women pose to men most probably alludes to The Odyssey, in which only the wily Odysseus survived hearing the sirens' song" (Blythe and Sweet).

"Eliot borrows the same technique. His internal monologue begins with the "you" and "I," the two sides of Prufrock's personality, debating whether or not to confront a female. One side wants to believe in the possibility of a relationship with a woman; the other, doubts the possibility. (Blythe and Sweet)"

“The parallel between the two poems, then, seems so close that, rather than simply an allusion used for contrast, Donne’s seventeenth-century “Song” may be a source of Eliot’s twentieth-century “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Both poems show allusions and reference to other works."

"Donne's persona pictures women as adversaries to be treated with caution. Donne's use of the mermaid image to suggest the danger women pose to men most probably alludes to The Odyssey, in which only the wily Odysseus survived hearing the sirens' song."
(Blythe and Sweet)